PAUL: THE PERSECUTOR WHOM CHRIST SEIZED AND SENT

Scripture presents Paul first as Saul, a Pharisee who persecuted the church of God, and then as the apostle whom the risen Christ seized on the road to Damascus and sent to the Gentiles, and in that reversal, in the blindness and the sight, in the sufferings and the letters, the text traces a man who did not choose Christ but was chosen by Him, who did not climb to God but was struck down by God, and who therefore preached a gospel in which God does all and man receives all (Acts 9:1-19; Gal 1:11-16; Phil 3:4-14). The arrangement is the argument: persecutor, appearance, commission, mission, suffering, chains, and letters declare that salvation belongs to the Lord, that faith is present possession, and that Christ Himself is the center of all the Scriptures (Jonah 2:9; John 6:47; Luke 24:27; John 5:39). From Him, through Him, and to Him are all things (Rom 11:36).

SAUL OF TARSUS: A PHARISEE ZEALOUS AGAINST THE NAME OF JESUS

Saul was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, a Jew, a citizen of Rome, brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict manner of the law of the fathers, zealous toward God (Acts 22:3; Acts 21:39; Acts 22:25-28). He describes himself as circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law blameless (Phil 3:5-6). That blamelessness is the indictment. The law he kept outwardly condemned him inwardly, for the commandment that promised life proved to be death to him, and sin, seizing opportunity through the commandment, deceived him and killed him (Rom 7:9-11).

The record first names Saul at the stoning of Stephen. The witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul, and Saul approved of his execution (Acts 7:58; Acts 8:1). A great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem, and Saul ravaged the church, entering house after house, dragging off men and women and committing them to prison (Acts 8:3). He breathed threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, and went to the high priest and asked for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem (Acts 9:1-2). He later confessed that he persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it, and that he advanced in Judaism beyond many of his own age, being extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers (Gal 1:13-14). He punished believers often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them he persecuted them even to foreign cities (Acts 26:10-11). The persecutor did not lack sincerity. He lacked sight. The heart is deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9), and no man by zeal for the law comes to the Son unless the Father draws him (John 6:44).

ON THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS, THE RISEN CHRIST APPEARS AND COMMANDS

As Saul journeyed to Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven shone around him, and falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him why he persecuted Him, and when he asked who spoke, the voice answered that it was Jesus whom he persecuted (Acts 9:3-5). The risen Christ did not wait to be sought. He sought. He did not offer Saul a neutral choice between two ways. He struck him down, blinded him, and commanded him to rise and enter the city, where he would be told what he must do (Acts 9:6-9). Saul rose from the ground, but when his eyes were opened he saw nothing, and for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank (Acts 9:8-9). The man who had seen clearly by the law could not see at all until Christ opened his eyes.

The Lord spoke in a vision to Ananias, a disciple at Damascus, commanding him to go to Saul, for Saul was a chosen instrument to carry the name of Christ before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, and the Lord would show him how much he must suffer for the sake of that name (Acts 9:10-16). Ananias went, laid his hands on Saul, and said that the Lord Jesus who had appeared to him on the road had sent him so that Saul might regain his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit, and immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight, and he rose and was baptized (Acts 9:17-19). The same pattern governs every conversion in the record: God commands what is impossible for man, and God performs what He commands. With man salvation is impossible, but with God all things are possible (Matt 19:25-26). Saul did not decide for Christ. Christ decided for Saul, and Saul's sight was the gift, not the achievement.

Paul himself returns to this appearance again and again, and each telling adds weight rather than variation. Before the crowd in Jerusalem he tells that he was a Jew zealous for God, that he persecuted the Way to death, and that on the road at midday a great light shone and Jesus of Nazareth spoke to him and appointed him to see the Righteous One and hear a voice from His mouth, and to be His witness to all men of what he had seen and heard (Acts 22:3-15). Before Agrippa he tells that Christ appeared to him to appoint him as a servant and witness, to open the eyes of the Gentiles, to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those sanctified by faith in Christ (Acts 26:12-18). In his letter to the Galatians he insists that the gospel he preached was not man's gospel, for he did not receive it from any man nor was he taught it, but he received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ, and that God, who had set him apart before he was born and called him by grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in him in order that he might preach Him among the Gentiles (Gal 1:11-16). The revelation precedes the preaching. The calling precedes the obedience. The Son is revealed in the man before the man speaks of the Son to others.

ARABIA, JERUSALEM, AND THE GOSPEL RECEIVED, NOT INVENTED

Immediately after Damascus, Paul did not consult with flesh and blood, nor go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before him, but went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus, and only after three years went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, staying fifteen days, seeing none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother (Gal 1:17-19). In Damascus he immediately proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying that He is the Son of God, and all who heard him were amazed, asking whether this was not the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name, and he increased in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ (Acts 9:20-22). The persecutor had become the preacher, and the proof was not his resolve but the identity of the One who had appeared to him.

When the Jews plotted to kill him in Damascus, the disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall in a basket (Acts 9:23-25). In Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple, until Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus (Acts 9:26-27). He went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord, until the Hellenists sought to kill him, and the brothers brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus (Acts 9:28-30). Fourteen years later he went up again to Jerusalem, this time by revelation, and set before the leaders the gospel he proclaimed among the Gentiles, lest he should be running in vain, and he records that even Titus, a Greek, was not forced to be circumcised, and that James and Cephas and John gave him the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that he should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised (Gal 2:1-10). The gospel was one. The fields were two. The hand of fellowship did not create the gospel. It recognized the grace already given to Paul.

THE MISSION: THE GOSPEL TO THE GENTILES WITHOUT THE YOKE OF THE LAW

The mission begins where the Spirit sends, not where Paul plans. At Antioch, while the church worshiped and fasted, the Holy Spirit said to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which He had called them, and they laid hands on them and sent them off (Acts 13:1-3). At Cyprus, at Pisidian Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, at Derbe, Paul preached Christ, and the pattern repeats: the Jews hear first, many believe, others stir up persecution, and Paul turns to the Gentiles, for the Lord had commanded that he be a light for the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth (Acts 13:14-52; Acts 14:1-28). At Lystra the people, seeing a lame man healed, called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, and would have sacrificed to them, until Paul and Barnabas tore their garments and cried out that they were men of like nature, preaching that men should turn from vain things to the living God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them (Acts 14:8-18). At Derbe and back through Lystra and Iconium and Antioch they strengthened the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations it is necessary to enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:21-22).

The question that threatened the mission was circumcision. Some men came down from Judea and taught that unless the Gentiles were circumcised according to the custom of Moses they could not be saved, and Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension with them, and went up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question (Acts 15:1-2). At Jerusalem Peter rose and said that God, who knows the heart, bore witness to the Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did to the Jews, and made no distinction between them, cleansing their hearts by faith, and that men should not put a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither their fathers nor they had been able to bear (Acts 15:7-11). James judged that the Gentiles who turn to God should not be troubled, and the council wrote that it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to them to lay no greater burden than abstaining from idols and blood and what has been strangled and sexual immorality (Acts 15:19-29). Paul carries that judgment into his letters as doctrine: a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, for by works of the law no one will be justified (Gal 2:16). If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose (Gal 2:21). The law was a guardian until Christ came, that men might be justified by faith, and now that faith has come, men are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus all are sons of God through faith (Gal 3:23-26). Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God, and in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but faith working through love, and a new creation (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; Gal 6:15).

The second and third journeys carry the same gospel into Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia. At Philippi, Lydia's heart was opened by the Lord to pay attention to what Paul said, and she was baptized, and the jailer who had guarded Paul asked what he must do to be saved, and Paul answered that he should believe in the Lord Jesus, and he would be saved (Acts 16:14-34). The opening of the heart and the answer of belief stand together: the Lord opens, and the man believes, and the belief is not a work that earns the opening. At Athens Paul proclaimed the unknown God, declaring that God made the world and everything in it, that He does not live in temples made by man, that He gives life and breath to all, that He determined the times and boundaries of the nations that they should seek God, and that He now commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed, having given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:22-31). At Corinth Paul stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God, and many Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized, and the Lord said to him in a vision not to be afraid but to go on speaking, for He had many people in that city (Acts 18:1-11). At Ephesus Paul reasoned daily in the hall of Tyrannus for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, and God did extraordinary miracles by his hands, and the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily (Acts 19:8-20). The increase is the Lord's. The prevailing is the word's. Paul is the instrument, and the instrument does not boast in itself.

THE LETTERS: THE DOCTRINE PAUL WAS GIVEN TO WRITE

Paul's letters are not commentary on his mission. They are the mission in written form, and Scripture itself treats them as such. He writes to the Romans that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith (Rom 3:23-25). He writes that God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and that since we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God (Rom 5:8-9). He writes that those whom God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, and those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified (Rom 8:29-30). The chain has no broken link, and no link depends on the will of man, for it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy (Rom 9:16). He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills (Rom 9:18). The same will performs both operations, and the vessel does not answer back to the Potter (Rom 9:19-21).

To the Corinthians he writes that the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God, and that God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and what is weak to shame the strong, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (1 Cor 1:18-29). He writes that Christ is the wisdom of God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord (1 Cor 1:30-31). To the Ephesians he writes that by grace men have been saved through faith, and this is not their own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast, for men are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand (Eph 2:8-10). To the Philippians he writes that he counts everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord, and that he counts his former righteousness as rubbish, in order that he may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of his own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith (Phil 3:7-9). The counting is the confession: what Paul once prized, he now calls loss, and the loss is not his achievement but the judgment of the light that struck him down.

Paul's doctrine of faith is present possession, not a wager on the future. He who believes has eternal life (John 6:47). He who hears Christ's word and believes Him who sent Him has eternal life, and has passed from death to life (John 5:24). Paul writes to the Romans that to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness (Rom 4:5). He writes that since men have been justified by faith, they have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5:1). Evidence in Paul is never the foundation. The testimony of God is greater than the testimony of men, and the testimony of God is that He has given eternal life, and this life is in His Son, and whoever has the Son has life (1 John 5:9-12). Signs followed Paul, but Paul never asks the churches to rest on signs. He asks them to rest on Christ, crucified and risen, in whom all the promises of God find their Yes (2 Cor 1:20).

SUFFERING, THORN, AND CHAINS: THE APOSTLE WEAKENED THAT CHRIST MIGHT BE STRONG

Paul's sufferings are recorded by his own hand with a bluntness that forbids romantic reading. Five times he received forty lashes less one, three times he was beaten with rods, once he was stoned, three times he was shipwrecked, a night and a day he was adrift at sea, in journeys often, in danger from rivers, robbers, his own people, Gentiles, in the city, in the wilderness, at sea, from false brothers, in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure, and apart from other things the daily pressure of anxiety for all the churches (2 Cor 11:23-28). He records a thorn given him in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass him, to keep him from becoming conceited, and that three times he pleaded with the Lord about it, and the Lord answered that grace was sufficient for him, for power is made perfect in weakness, and therefore Paul declares that he will boast all the more gladly of his weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon him, for when he is weak, then he is strong (2 Cor 12:7-10). The thorn is not removed. The grace is given. The weakness is the vessel, and the power is Christ's.

The end of the Acts record is chains, not triumph. At Jerusalem Paul was seized in the temple, and the crowd sought to kill him, and the tribune took him into custody, and Paul spoke to the people and to the council and to Felix and Festus and Agrippa, testifying that he worshiped the God of his fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and the Prophets, having a hope in God that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust, and that he was on trial for the hope of the resurrection of the dead (Acts 21:27-36; Acts 23:1-11; Acts 24:14-16; Acts 26:1-29). He appealed to Caesar, was shipwrecked on the way to Rome, and lived there two whole years at his own expense, welcoming all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28:16-31). The book ends open, with the gospel unhindered in chains. Paul's own last letter, written from that imprisonment, says that he is already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of his departure has come, that he has fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith, and that henceforth there is laid up for him the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to him on that day, and not only to him but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Tim 4:6-8). He asks Timothy to bring the cloak and the books, and above all the parchments (2 Tim 4:13). The apostle who wrote the letters still wants the parchments. The work ends as it began: a man dependent on what is given to him.

THE LATER WITNESSES TAKE PAUL UP, AND PAUL POINTS TO CHRIST

Luke's Acts is the first witness, and it does not present Paul as a second founder. It presents him as the servant through whom the word spreads from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth, as Christ had said (Acts 1:8). Peter, in his second letter, speaks of the letters of Paul as Scripture, saying that Paul wrote according to the wisdom given him, speaking of these things, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures (2 Pet 3:15-16). Peter does not correct Paul. He counts Paul's writings with the Scriptures. Paul himself, writing to Timothy, says that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17). The letters that teach that doctrine are themselves part of the Scripture they describe.

Paul's own final word on his life is not his sufferings, nor his journeys, nor his churches. It is Christ. He writes that for him to live is Christ, and to die is gain, and that his desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for the churches (Phil 1:21-24). He writes that Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish, and that this mystery is profound, referring to Christ and the church (Eph 5:25-32). The bride is not presented spotless because she made herself spotless. She is presented spotless because the Bridegroom washed her, clothed her, and kept her. The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready, for it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure (Rev 19:7-8). The clothing is granted. The readiness is given.

Saul persecuted the church because he did not know Christ. Paul preached Christ because Christ knew him, seized him, blinded him, opened his eyes, and sent him. He did not choose the road to Damascus. The Lord met him on it. He did not earn the gospel he preached. The gospel was revealed to him. He did not sustain himself in chains. Grace sustained him in weakness. The exposition ends where Paul's letters end: not with the apostle, but with the Son whom the apostle preached, in whom all Scripture is fulfilled, for beginning with Moses and all the Prophets Christ interpreted in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27), and the Scriptures bear witness about Him (John 5:39). From Him, through Him, and to Him are all things (Rom 11:36).